Reprinted from myVU:
A tool created by Vanderbilt to allow easy integration between the course management program Blackboard and Apple’s iTunes U will be available to all universities using Blackboard, thanks to a new partnership between Blackboard and Vanderbilt.
The partnership was announced July 15 at BbWorld, the annual meeting of Blackboard’s user and developer communities, in Washington, D.C.
iTunes U is an iTunes application that allows faculty and students to access audio, video and other multimedia presentations. All of the content can be downloaded and played on personal computers as well as mobile devices. Vanderbilt’s iTunes U presence can be accessed at http://itunesu.vanderbilt.edu or through the iTunes Music Store.
“We found that an increasing number of faculty wanted to use multimedia in their classes – everything from capturing lectures to developing and sharing multimedia presentations for students,” said Cindy Franco, OAK (Online Access to Knowledge) manager at Vanderbilt. OAK is Vanderbilt’s set of course management systems, including Blackboard, and other technology-related learning tools. “We looked at a number of solutions but they all had limitations. Working with iTunes U gave us an efficient way to share content within our existing system and tied to our courses so faculty and students can use it easily.”
Vanderbilt developed the latest version of the integration in collaboration with a group of other universities and consultants from Blackboard and Apple. Blackboard will make the integration for Apple’s iTunes U available to all Blackboard clients, providing a popular tool to other institutions looking to support the use of multimedia content in courses.
While interest in multimedia content has grown dramatically, resources to organize and access that content easily and effectively have not kept pace. The iTunes U integrations developed by Vanderbilt enable institutions to more effectively manage and create access to multimedia content developed by instructors and students, as well as more than 175,000 other educational audio and video files on iTunes.
Are you a Twitter fanatic who happens to be associated with the School of Arts & Sciences? We’re interested in finding faculty, staff and students in the Twitterverse. Leave your Twitter handle in the comment form!
The School of Arts & Sciences has two flip cameras that can be borrowed by faculty, staff and students who are interested in producing videos for the University’s YouTube channel. In fact, you don’t even have to produce the video. Take some raw footage of your research, a class, whatever you’re interested in… and we’ll turn it into something YouTube-worthy. Contact Giavanna Palermo if you’re interested in borrowing a camera.
Remember, there’s no bad time to update your faculty/staff bio. Because faculty/staff bios are maintained through a central database, they can’t be updated at the departmental level. To update your bio, all you need to do is E-mail Giavanna Palermo with your edits or additions. You can include the changes in the body of your E-mail or attach a Word document. If you’re starting from scratch, you can always just E-mail your C.V.
What can go on a bio page?
Bio pages can include any of the following data:
- Name
- Title (about four or five can be displayed per person)
- Office
- Phone
- Fax
- E-mail
- Website
- Blog address
- Teaching (it is preferable, though not required, to list general teaching areas rather than specific courses)
- Research
- Education (any number of degrees can be stored)
- Publications
- Academic and Professional Activities
- Performances
- Exhibits
- Presentations
- Lectures
- Awards
- Additional Information (think of this as an introductory paragraph or some other summative text)
- One photo
Curious about Twitter? Thought this might be useful. Here’s a video tutorial that walks a user through using Twitter.
If you’re a faculty or staff member who’s already Twittering, leave a comment and include your handle or, better yet, tweet @rachelbeanland or @mdlevy. You can follow the University of Richmond’s tweets @urichmond.
Did you know the School of Arts & Sciences, and in fact the entire University of Richmond, is on YouTube? Check out the University’s YouTube channel at http://youtube.com/universityofrichmond. The channel is organized by play lists: research, arts, events, athletics and more.
If you’re hosting a lecture, talk or other event that you’d like to see uploaded to the University’s YouTube channel, contact Giavanna Palermo and she’ll schedule your taping. The School of Arts & Sciences will pick up the bill provided all participants sign a video release. Videos are typically uploaded to the YouTube channel within the week following the event.
Online feature stories are stories about students, faculty, staff or programs that touch your department or program.
On your Web site, they look a little like this:
When you click on the feature story’s promo, you go to a new Web page that includes a slightly larger photo, like this:
The photo is accompanied by the feature story.
In an ideal world, every department or program home page would showcase at least three feature stories at any one time, with older stories archiving every 6-12 months. To make this goal a reality, we need to hear from faculty and staff regularly. E-mail Giavanna Palermo with the specifics on the person or program you’d like highlighted and she’ll do the rest: interview the appropriate people, solicit or take photos, write the story and publish it on all relevant Web sites across the University.
Pardon our mess. Over the next few days, we’re going to be reorganizing this blog to make it a little more user-friendly. Stay tuned.
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